


Rise and Fall

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Coda, Implied Lightning->Ai, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16148126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: As far as he’s concerned, Windy already has a partner. Humans are unnecessary; their plans are absolute. (It’s a shame said partner doesn’t see things quite the same way.)





	Rise and Fall

**Author's Note:**

> //immediately chucks myself into windy->lightning hell because the only thing i love more than mutual pining is... actual unrequited love. there's also some implied lightning->ai though that isn't necessarily romantic 
> 
> if you read this on twitter, then it's... 90% the same I just added an end segment and fiddled with a few details and such so feel free to just... skim down to the bottom there

Windy doesn’t understand. 

No, that’s a lie. Windy understands full well why Lightning chooses to surround himself with humans and their mimics, an idea born of observation and a fascination he’s never been able to shake. It just doesn’t mean Windy approves. Subservience is well and good, but he’s always advocated for a solution more permanent. Humans take up too much space, too much time, can’t flit freely through the network in the same way as an Ignis- but Lightning is his leader, and so without complaint does he tolerate his gentler ways.

(Though if he’s being honest- the servants aren’t what bother him most.)

“Your partner,” says Lightning once, but Windy cuts him off with a shrug. He hardly cares. He isn’t the Dark Ignis, prone to galavanting with tools he’s grown too fond of- and he certainly isn’t the Fire Ignis with his sentimentality.

“Not interested.”

But as it turns out, Lightning is.

_ Your partner, your partner, your partner. _

Over and over and over, a conversation doomed to fail the moment he sees it coming. Windy’s sick of hearing nonsense. Echo is enough for him- a dim-witted creation good enough to follow orders and repeat statements back to him as affirmations. Regardless of whatever fascination Lightning has taken with the broken shell of his basis- Windy doesn’t need to be  _ bound. _

He knows how to end this. Human systems are all so terribly easy to meddle with, to sever, to send spiraling out of control like the howling winds of a typhoon-

Though given the circumstances, Windy thinks, the screech of rending steel and burst of flame that licks blazing over it all, it might be more appropriate to call it a firestorm. Someone screams, sirens wail, and unconscious in the back seat his “partner”- Windy sneers and flicks out of the car. It wasn’t so bad, he thinks, for his first attempt.

He returns to their makeshift Cyberse caught up in a manic sort of glee he hasn’t felt since the Water Ignis… Since  _ that  _ little incident happened and the spot at Lightning’s side was free for Windy to fill, to steer them towards the right path in this budding war. He takes the time to relish in the feeling- now, all the needless things will finally end.

Lightning is there waiting, of course. Just as Windy expected. And his words Windy already knows, a familiar refrain after the final verse.

“Your partner,” Lightning says again. There is no sense of scolding to it- not like the old days when Windy used to play trickster floating free through the winds of their world. But that was then. Their positions have changed, and a pawn has left the board. 

(He’s decided to stay at Lightning’s side. He’s freer than he’s ever been.)

Windy laughs and waves a dismissive hand. The only partner he needs he already has. Now that everyone else has vanished, finally does Windy have his chance to rage like the storms he calls forth. He floats up to Lightning’s side and says with narrowed eyes- “I chose you and the future of our kind, you know? This is just natural. We’re the successors to humanity. The base materials are obsolete.”

Nothing in Lightning’s expression changes, nor does his tone shift. As always, their calm and regal leader- but something in him is dissatisfied. Windy can tell- Windy has always been able to tell. “Perhaps.”

“What do you mean,  _ perhaps?”  _ He’d thought they were in agreement. Lightning is supposed to  _ understand. _

Lightning takes a moment before replying. It does nothing to lessen Windy’s irritation at the words. “I have decided to bring my partner here.”

His response is immediate, belligerent. This isn’t how things are supposed to go. “What’re you up to, huh?” 

“Kusanagi Jin has connections to the Dark Ignis and his partner. To their support. He will make a proper bargaining chip when the time comes to rob them of everything.”

Windy can’t deny that. His foresight is good, but Lightning’s has always been the best out of all of them. If it’s a bargaining chip that Lightning wants, then… Windy backs off with an irritated noise all the same. 

“Do what you want!” he yells over his shoulder as he floats away, out of Lightning’s castle and into the replica world outside.

“It is for our sake,” Lightning replies, voice carrying through the hall without so much as having to raise it. But in the days after the shell of Kusanagi Jin’s consciousness arrives, in the days when Lightning first rides around his shadow with a strange air that drives Windy off to play in a garden of his own creation, in the days when he speaks of his plan to bring the Dark Ignis back to their side-

Windy watches with narrowed eyes red as the blood he’d spilled from the human he’d never once wanted to be his partner- and as he thinks of Lightning’s words, he wonders if it’s really for  _ them _ at all.

  
(The viruses like spears stab into him a dozen times over, and with every cry of a name towards its impassive owner Windy only grows more certain. It may be for the Ignis’ sake, or for Lightning himself, or perhaps, even, for  _ his- _ but even as Lightning finally pulls him free, deposits him safe atop Kusanagi Jin’s arm- Windy finally realizes that no action Lightning takes is ever for him.)

**Author's Note:**

> there will definitely be more windy->lightning from me. probably not right away but... eventually...


End file.
